


Thaw

by iris_impossible



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Explicit Consent, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Help a Girl Out, Loss of Virginity, Porn with Feelings, Season/Series 03, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21984316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iris_impossible/pseuds/iris_impossible
Summary: Mac is frozen below the waist since her traumatic last evening with Cassidy. She needs help from someone she can trust who knows what he's doing, and there's one obvious candidate.
Relationships: Logan Echolls/Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Thaw

Mac clenches her hands together, trying to work some blood back into her numb, tingling fingertips. They say this is what happens when your life is threatened; all your blood leaves your extremities and rushes to your vital organs. She must have been too busy at the time to notice. Before she can lose her nerve, she raises her hand and knocks.

The door to the hotel suite opens and Logan doesn’t even attempt to hide his surprise at finding her standing there.

“Hey…” he says, frowning.

“Mac,” she supplies.

He briefly rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I know, I’m just—” He blanches. “Wait, is it Veronica? Is she…?”

“Oh God.” Mac waves her hands like she could waft away what he’s thinking. “No, she’s fine.”

The residual panic is slow in draining from his face. She thinks he must be remembering another conversation like this, when things _weren’t_ fine, and she feels like the world’s biggest asshole.

“Sorry,” she whispers.

He shrugs off her apology. “Do you, um, want to come in?”

“Yeah, thanks.” She steps past him into the suite, which somehow feels sterile and anonymous even with Logan’s stuff strewn on every surface. “So you’re wondering why I’m here.”

“Well, you’ve never dropped by before,” Logan says, flinging himself onto the sofa, “so I’m guessing this isn’t just a social call.”

She perches on the edge of the cushion beside him, poised for flight. If she needs to, she can be up and out of the door in two and a half seconds.

“Yeah.” She takes a deep breath. “I kind of… wanted to ask you a favor.”

Logan, bemused, tilts his head at her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” God this was stupid. Why had she come here. “I think Veronica told you… about how she found me. That night last spring— the night that…”

Logan abruptly stands and walks across the room.

_Fuck._

Mac stands, too. “I-I’m sorry, I should go.”

“No, that’s not it. Sit down,” he says. He throws open the mini-bar, pulling out a handful of bottles. “I just think this conversation is going to need some reinforcements.”

She laughs nervously and plucks a bottle of vodka from the assortment he offers her. “Good call.”

Logan twists the cap off of something brown and clinks the plastic rim of his bottle against hers. “Bottoms up.”

She throws back the vodka in one gulp, grimacing at the taste and the burn down her throat. Logan immediately chases his first bottle with a second.

“Okay.” He sits down next to her. “So, that night.”

“Yeah. Well, it was kind of traumatizing.”

His low huff of laughter is mirthless. “I think I can imagine.”

“And ever since I just…” The vodka’s reached her stomach and is starting to seep warmth into her veins, but she can’t force the words past her lips. “God this is impossible.”

She tries to stand but he stops her by catching her coat sleeve, and she’s surprised at how soft his eyes are on hers when he says, “Hey, it’s okay. I’m not… going to judge you or anything. God knows I am or have done worse than whatever it is you’re going to say.”

He’s being so nice that the worlds come tumbling out of her all in a rush. “I’m just closed for business, you know?”

His eyes widen. “Oh, you mean…?”

Her cheeks are on fire but there’s no going back now. “Anytime someone touches me, my stupid lizard brain just freaks out and shuts down and it all comes rushing back at me. And I need it to _stop_. I need to… to get past it.”

He’s frowning. “Okay. So…”

“So…” Her throat is parched and she grabs another bottle at random and drinks it down. “So I need help. Just getting past it.”

“... _oh_ ,” he says, his voice suddenly very small.

“From someone I know I can trust, you know,” she says. “Who… knows what he’s doing and doesn’t, like, _like_ me. Someone who can just… be a pal about it.”

Logan is staring down at the floor, and she wonders if she’s actually broken his brain with her insane request. It made sense in her head when she decided to come here but actually saying the words out loud… God, she hopes he gets so drunk after she’s gone that he forgets she was ever here or she’s going to have to drop out of school and move to China.

“Never mind,” she says, heading for the door, forcing herself to like laugh it’s nothing. “I’m sorry. This was crazy. I never should have come here.”

She opens the door to flee, but before she can slip through it, he’s there, pushing it gently shut again.

“Wait,” he says. “Do you really think this would help you?”

She risks a brief glance at him. “Yeah.”

He takes a deep breath. “Okay then.”

Her head spins. She realizes she never really considered that he might actually say _yes._ “Really?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I didn’t… I did so much wrong that night. If there’s anything I can do to help make some of it right again, then I want to.”

She swallows, feeling as though her heart is trying to escape through her throat. “Thanks.”

“But we need some ground rules.”

“Of course.” She unshoulders her bag and pulls out a notebook. He laughs and sits down next to her on the sofa as she flips to a clean page. “First, this is a one-time thing. Just one friend doing another friend a favor.”

“Agreed,” he says. “And it stays between us.”

“Absolutely.” She scribbles it all down. “And I don’t want you to kiss me on the mouth. That’s too…”

He nods. “I get it. Either of us says stop, it’s over.”

“That just leaves one thing." Her voice is totally deadpan when she says, "You have to promise not to fall in love with me."

They both grin into the insane absurdity of it all.

“Likewise, Mackenzie,” he says.

She tears the piece of paper from her notebook and lays it on the coffee table. As soon as it leaves her hand, the brief calm that had come over her when she had a task to do leaves her. She feels like a frightened kid on the very first day of school.

“Soo…” she says.

He swallows. “Yeah.”

She thinks she could die right there on the spot from the awkwardness. “I’m really going to need your help here, Logan.”

He nods. “You’re right. This is part of why you picked me, right, because I’m such a—”

“—man slut—”

“ _Ladies’ man_ , I was going to say.” He tugs the lapel of her coat. “Maybe we start with taking this off.”

“Man with a plan,” she says, trying to sound light. “I like it.”

She slides the coat off her shoulders and tosses it onto the end of the sofa. He slowly scoots closer to her, until his knee presses into the side of her thigh, and gives her a crooked little smile.

“You just tell me if you want me to stop or slow down or do something different,” he says. “Okay, pal?”

She nods, actually _hearing_ herself gulp like some goddamn cartoon character as he leans into her. She smells his laundry detergent — so strangely benign and intimate — before he lays his lips to her temple. It feels nice, just… nice. He follows it with a light kiss to her jawline and then one to her neck. It tickles and she instinctually jerks her shoulder up to her ear, giggling.

“Um, ouch,” he says. “That was my face.”

“Sorry, sorry!”

He tries again, and again she jerks away, dissolving into panicked laughter.

“Oh God, I can’t,” she says. “This is too weird.”

He grabs her hand. “I’ve got an idea. Come with me.”

He leads her to his bedroom, and her lizard brain starts sending alarm bells clanging wildly through her body. Her heels dig into the carpet.

“It’s okay,” he hastens to reassure her. “We’re not going to do anything. I just think you need to relax. Right?”

“Definitely.”

“Okay, lie down,” he says. “On your stomach.”

She reminds herself that this is just _Logan_ —who’s been pretty desperately in love with Veronica as long as she’s known him — and does as he says, pillowing her head on her hands.

“Can I touch your back?” he asks.

She nods.

The mattress dips and she rolls slightly toward his weight as he settles down beside her. She hears him rubbing his hands together, and then they’re on her shoulders, rubbing her tense muscles with a steady, soothing pressure. Her eyes fall closed. Logan’s fingers are warm and strong as he works away at her shoulders and neck, and as she gets used to him touching her, she feels her breaths start to deepen and the nervous pounding of her heart slow. As she relaxes, his widens the scope of his operation. His fingers stray up into her hair, gently raking her scalp until her whole head tingles. Afterward he methodically works his way along her arms and then down her spine.

When he reaches the small of her back, she feels him tug at the hem of her shirt. “Okay?” he asks.

She pauses for only a second before she nods.

His hands, warmer than she expected, slip under her shirt to massage her lower back, not straying toward anything more intimate than that. For some reason it gives her the courage to say, “You can take it off.”

He doesn’t ask her if she’s sure, which she appreciates, just carefully works the shirt up and over her head. She hears it hit the floor beside the bed. He works his way back up to her shoulders, and she feels like she’s melting.

“You’re good at this,” she says fuzzily.

He laughs. “Thanks.”

He slips his hands beneath her bra strap as he kneads her back, and she opens her eyes, but then he moves on and she realizes her lizard brain has gone quiet, lulled by this gentle contact. She feels Logan shift above her, and then his lips are warm and dry against the back of her neck.

“How you doing?” he asks.

“Good,” she whispers.

“Ready for more?”

She nods and rolls over, resisting the urge to grab for her shirt, reminding herself that a bra is basically the same as a swimsuit and she wears those in public. It helps that Logan is being careful not to let his gaze stray from her face.

But it’s still weird. Her expression is half smile, half-cringe as she says, “I can’t believe you’re seeing my bra.”

“Well I guess I can level the playing field, at least,” he says, pulling off his shirt and tossing it aside.

“I don’t know how level that is,” she says, trying not to look at what seems like miles of golden skin suddenly in front of her. “You go shirtless almost any chance you get, you vain bastard.”

“That’s fair,” he says. Then with no trace of embarrassment adds, “Want me to take off my pants?”

She has to stop herself from gaping at him. That is why she came here after all, isn’t it? She can’t be demure about it forever.

“Or not,” he says. “It’s up to you. We can stop now.”

She shakes her head. The idea of leaving here the same way she came when she’s made it this far is intolerable. “No. I need to do this.”

He stands and unbuttons his jeans. She does the same. He kicks off his, revealing his black boxer briefs, and she slips out of hers, unveiling her rainbow striped underwear. She didn’t really think through her wardrobe ahead of time.

“You’re doing great,” he tells her.

She starts to laugh. Just a little at first and then, like, hysterically, clutching her sides.

“What?” he says, grinning as she doubles over, her amusement catching.

“This is just too bizarre,” she says. “And you sound exactly like my old soccer coach.”

“I’m trying to be supportive!”

“I know! I appreciate it.”

He reaches out and brushes a piece of her hair behind her ear. “You’re awfully pretty, Cindy Mackenzie,” he says simply. “I hope you know it.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” she says, “but you’re pretty hot, Logan Echolls.”

“Oh, I do know it,” he says with a wicked, teasing smile. “Now get in the bed.”

She climbs under the covers, her laughter receding as her nerves flare up again. Logan slips under the comforter beside her and turns on his side to face her.

“So…” he says. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” She swallows. “You’re the expert here… What would you suggest?”

“Well, if we’re going to have sex”—he says it so casually but something deep in Mac’s stomach surges at the sound of the word—“which I _think_ is what you want to do, it’ll be better if we work up to it a little. Less uncomfortable for you.”

Her voice comes out shaky and hollow. “Okay. Whatever you think. I trust you.”

The look in his eyes shifts. For a moment he’s more naked in front of her than he was standing in front of her in just his underwear. But then he looks away and it’s gone.

“Okay,” he says. “Just tell me if you need something to change, got it?”

She nods. “Got it.”

He leans into her, pressing his lips to her neck, and this time it doesn’t tickle. One hand slides across her stomach and curls over her hip, pulling her closer. Her throat gets tight and hot and she’s not sure how much of it is fear and how much is… other things.

She doesn’t know what to do with her own hands. They seem to be in way, one trapped between them and the other just flailing about with nowhere to go. She finally rests her free hand on Logan’s bare back as he peppers kisses down her neck and over her collarbone.

Then he brushes one hand softly over the cup of her bra, and she digs her fingers into his skin, pleasure and alarm exploding behind her eyes.

“You okay, pal?” he asks, the words ghosting over her skin.

She nods shakily. This is why she’s here. “Yeah.”

He moves the hand back to her side, rubbing his thumb back and forth over her ribcage, while her pulse returns to something like normal, or as normal as it could be under the circumstances. And then he does it again, brushing his fingers over her breast, giving it a light squeeze this time.

“God,” she says, throwing her head back against the pillow.

“Nice?”

“Uh-huh.”

He repeats the pattern three times, four, until there’s no fear when he touches her, just sensation. Like exposure therapy, she thinks dizzily. Damn he’s good.

Then his hand drifts down over her sternum, her stomach, her navel.

“You okay?” he asks.

She swallows. “Yeah.”

He runs one finger along the elastic at the top of her underwear, and her breathing goes wobbly. “Can I touch you?”

She can’t speak, just nods.

He nudges her until she turns onto her side, his chest warm at her back. It’s easier this way, not having to see his face and not having him see hers, and she wonders how he knew it would be. Slowly, giving her plenty of time to stop him, he traces his fingertips over the front of her underwear and between her legs until he’s cupping her in his hand. It feels good, but the terror that she’s tried so hard to bury down has reared up inside of her, licking at her insides like fire, paralyzing her.

He presses a chaste kiss to the back of her shoulder. “You’re not breathing. Take a breath.”

She forces herself to inhale, and they take a few deep breaths together, his chest rising and falling in time with hers. He uses his free hand to smooth her hair but otherwise he’s still, letting her get used to the feel of him touching her where no one has before.

“Better?” he asks.

She nods. “Keep going.”

“You’re the boss,” he whispers, and he begins to move his hand, massaging his fingers over her with the same gentle, sure strokes he’d used on her tense shoulders earlier. Her breath comes in gasping little hiccups and she grips the sheets in her fists. Logan is still stroking her hair with his other hand, and she realizes that despite everything, she actually feels… safe.

Which is how she’s able to move her legs, rolling onto her back to open herself up for him, letting him slip his fingers underneath the fabric of her underwear until he’s touching _her_.

“Oh my _God_ ,” she breathes as he strokes her flesh.

He laughs softly against her ear. “Good?”

“You are…”—she swallows—“…very talented.”

“I do my best.”

Veronica is an _idiot_. With the way he looks at her like she hung the moon and the way he’s able to do this, Mac thinks her friend might be the stupidest girl alive.

“Do you want to keep going?” Logan asks. “We can stop.”

She shakes her head.

“You know what comes next?” he asks.

She nods. “I’m ready.”

Slowly, gently, he slips the tip of one finger inside of her.

She freezes, Cassidy’s face bright with anguish suddenly looming in front of her.

“Stop,” she says, even though Logan had already frozen alongside her.

“Should I—”

“Just be still for a second,” she says, screwing her eyes shut against panicked tears. Why is this _happening_. She’s fine, she’s fine, she’s fine…

“Mac.” Logan strokes her hair. “Hey, look at me.”

With great effort, she opens her eyes and meets his concerned gaze, his eyes so deep and soft in the dimness of the room.

“What are you afraid of?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” she says, the tears crawling up her throat threatening to drown her. “Being hurt, I guess.”

A tear escapes her eye, rolling down her her cheek. He catches it with the side of his finger.

“Well I can’t speak for the rest of the world because it kind of sucks,” he says, kissing her eyebrow sweetly, “but I’m not going to hurt you.”

She nods. “I know.”

He kisses the tear trail across her cheek and the shell of her ear and down the side of her neck, not the innocent kisses of before but something more languid and lingering, dragging his lips across her skin. It diverts her attention away from what’s going on below the waist, and when the tip of his tongue starts to trace intricate patterns on her skin, it makes her mind jump tracks, from the horrors of that night to this moment, this bed and this boy beside her who she knows has _got her_.

“Okay,” she whispers, her body coming back to life, the panic receding like a tide going out a little more with each wave.

“Real slow?” he says.

She nods, and he begins to move inside her, gentle and languorous. _Logan_ , inside of her. It’s too insane to actually think about.

“More,” she says when feels like she’s ready, and he carefully adds a second finger, watching her face closely. She pants and turns her face into his chest.

“Do you want to…?” he asks.

She nods. She’s so close now to beating this thing.

He rolls away from her and she hears the him open the drawer of his bedside table followed by the crinkle of a condom wrapper. She realizes he’s had his lower half angled away from her this whole time, so as not to scare her maybe, or just to keep it from being about him. For a second she’s stupidly sure she’s going to cry. Instead she shimmies out of her underwear.

Logan repositions himself between her legs, and feeling the weight of him resting against her is somehow more intimate than anything else that’s happened so far. He must feel it too, because he gives her a little smile and tucks another strand of hair behind her ear.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

She smiles back. “I know.”

“Ready?”

She nods.

He slips his fingers back inside of her, and it’s a familiar intrusion now. He waits until her breaths are coming in short gasps to withdraw them and start to ease his cock in, his eyes clenched closed in concentration.

“Just relax,” he whispers, “and breathe.”

She does, and he slowly buries himself in her. It’s not exactly comfortable but it doesn’t hurt; he knew what he was doing getting her ready. The surge of emotion that goes through her, though, is so sharp and bright that it feels like a knife, and she closes her eyes against it. She feels vulnerable and sad and close and grateful all at once, and she wonders if he feels even a tiny fraction of that. One reason she chose him is because she thought he _wouldn’t_ feel anything and she thought she wanted that, but at this moment the idea gives her a pang of heartsickness.

“Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

She opens her eyes. He’s looking at her with such tender concern that she feels it deep down in her bones, so maybe he feels _something_.

“Yeah,” she says, giving him a smile. “You?”

He smiles back. “Yeah.”

He starts to move, and it all becomes a blur. Only snapshots of it linger with her: Logan’s uneven breath beside her ear, her mind whiting out as he reaches between their bodies and pushes her the final steps over the edge, the kiss he presses to her forehead before he rolls away.

For a while they just breathe, and then Logan looks over at her and touches her shoulder gently, like he thinks any touch could break her. “Mac, are you okay?”

She imagined she would cry in this moment, but she feels so light and relieved and awkward that she just starts to laugh.

He gives her a good-natured frown. “Not sure I’ve ever gotten that reaction before. That was some of my top-quality work, you know.”

She sighs, feeling an entire mountain shift off of her chest. “No, sorry, that was perfect. You were perfect.”

“Damn right I was. So did that… help?”

She rolls over to face him. She feels so close to him, which is probably just the chemicals in her brain going haywire and will fade with some time, but she knows she’ll carry the ember of this secret little night in her heart for a long time. And she’s glad.

“Yeah, I think so,” she says. “Thanks, pal.”

“Anytime.” He cringes. “I mean… you know what I mean.”

She laughs. “So is it going to be super weird between us now, or will we be able to go back to being normal friends?”

He grabs their shirts off the floor and hands hers to her while he pulls his own over his head. “I think we’ll be fine. But worse cast scenario, it’s not like we were that great of friends anyway.”

One way or another, she knows, that’s going to change.


End file.
